A CHEERY NIGHT AT THE MOVIES

In an earlier post …  I mentioned my love of Chuck Lorre, sit-com director & writer of Two & a Half Men and The Big Bang Theory, and his use of end of show title cards … vanity cards … which he has used extensively, to say stuff that his network won’t allow in the show

Here’s a recent one

CHUCK LORRE PRODUCTIONS, #235

FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION

(spoiler alert)

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It’s that time of the year when movie studios seeking Oscar nominations for their films start asking for my consideration. Every trade ad and mailing begins with the words, “For your consideration.” It’s kind of a Hollywood tradition. Anyway, this is what I’ve considered so far: Milk (a well-meaning gay guy is shot to death by a homophobe), Doubt (A really mean nun accuses a really terrific priest of being a pedophile), Revolutionary Road (a married couple fight a lot, cheat on each other, then the wife bleeds to death following a botched abortion), Slumdog Millionaire (incredibly poor kids subjected to unthinkable evil, but with a happy ending), Defiance (starving Jews fight Nazis in the woods), The Wrestler (a broken-down, over-the-hill wrestler on steroids has a tough life), Changeling (a woman’s son is abducted and the police put her in an insane asylum), Gran Torino (a dying widower commits suicide to help his neighbor), Benjamin Button (a guy grows old in reverse and then dies), Rachel Getting Married (a drug addict kills her baby brother and then pisses off her family during a wedding), and The Reader (Nazi atrocities, under-age sex and illiteracy prove to be a lethal combo). So, what am I considering? Well, for a moment or two I actually considered hanging myself. But then I thought, if I do that, the movies win

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CHUCK LORRE – The Big Bang Theory

CHUCK LORRE

 

Chuck Lorre is the writer/producer of top US sitcoms, “Dharma & Greg”, “Grace Under Fire”, “Two And A Half Men”, and his most recent success, “The Big Bang Theory”

 

Maggi and I are currently enjoying the second series of Big Bang, and particularly the performance of young actor Jim Parsons, who plays Sheldon, the ultimate cyber-geek … and US incarnation of my friend and comedian, Adam Bloom

 

Chuck Lorre has a wonderful idiosyncrasy, in that he writes individual “vanity cards” (inserted into the credits at the end of a show, identifying the production company) in stream-of-consciousness style for all of his Chuck Lorre Productions shows.

 

These cards are often hilarious, profound, and quite irreverent in their criticism of the network his shows are broadcast on.

 

The cards are sometimes banned by the network, but the offending cards can be seen on Chuck’s own site

 

http://www.chucklorre.com/

 

Here’s a sample vanity card from the site

 

CHUCK LORRE PRODUCTIONS, #224

 

EXT. CEMETERY – NIGHT

 

The CAMERA PANS across the headstones and crypts

as we HEAR:

 

JOHN (V.O.)

Some people say there’s no god. I disagree. I think there’re actually four gods: The god of money, the god of medicine, the god of war and the god of technology. Like it or not, these are the gods that rock our world. I mean, when stuff goes seriously wrong who do you call? Your priest or your lawyer? Your rabbi or your doctor? Your minister or a cop? Your monk or the smug little geek who set up your home entertainment system? But while the gods of tech, medicine, guns and money give us the illusion of being safe, they don’t give our lives meaning. For that we need other gods. And who are these other gods? Well, look around. They’re sports stars, movie stars, rock stars, the occasional political and business figures, cute chicks who become princesses, and rich chicks who don’t seem to require food. These are the deities who connect us with our abandoned inner selves. Their joy is our joy, their suffering is our suffering. We love and fear them, and occasionally crucify them. Which is a long-winded way of getting to what I do for a living. I buy and trade relics: the physical remains of dead gods.

The CAMERA FINDS: JOHN, a happy-go-lucky, long-haired guy in his late twenties. At the moment John is digging up the body of JIMI HENDRIX. In between shovels he looks up, smiles and WAVES AT THE CAMERA.

 

Here’s my own graphic using one of Chuck’s card quotes